Calvert of Strathore eBook

“Is there no other?” asked the Queen,
turning to Beaufort. “Surely we are not
so destitute of friends that we must send this girl
upon such a dangerous mission!” she said, sorrowfully.

“I implore your Majesty to let me go,”
said Adrienne, once more. “’Tis a service
I would do myself as well as your Majesty,” she
went on, her white face suddenly covered with a burning
blush.

The Queen looked at her keenly for a moment, and then
she put out her hand with a sad, comprehending smile.
“You may go,” she said.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TENTH OF AUGUST

According to agreement, Bremond sped instantly from
the Assembly to Courbevoie with news of the fresh
humiliation put upon the King and the outrageous scene
which had taken place. He found Calvert, Monciel,
Favernay, Bachman, and several officers of the Swiss
Guard, upon whose loyalty they could depend, assembled
in a room of the officers’ quarters of the barracks,
anxiously awaiting the issue of the day’s events.
He told his news amid a dead silence, broken only
now and then by an exclamation of indignation or disappointment
from one of the listeners. When he had finished
speaking, Calvert turned to the little group, “Then,
gentlemen,” he says, “pursuant to the plan,
the King’s request having been denied, we may
expect their Majesties here before ten, and shall
have the honor of guarding them to Compiegne.”

As he looked around upon the little company, there
was not a face but expressed some secret doubt and
misgiving. The King’s timidity and vacillation
were so well known that ’twas impossible not
to question his good faith even in this last extremity.
As ten o’clock passed and eleven and no message
or sign of the royal fugitives came to the anxious,
impatient watchers, those secret doubts and misgivings
began to be openly expressed.

“’Tis the Austrian who has kept him, I
will bet a hundred louis,” said one of the Guard’s
officers, gloomily. “I never believed she
would keep faith with us—­she is too deeply
committed to Brunswick—­nor will she let
the King do so.” Even while he spoke there
was a sound of someone’s running hurriedly up
the stairs—­they were assembled in an upper
room—­and in an instant an orderly was hammering
at the door, which was flung open by Monciel.

“A messenger for Monsieur Calvert,” he
says, saluting.

Calvert followed the man hastily down the steps to
where a figure waited for him which made him start
back with an exclamation of surprise and consternation.

Adrienne—­for it was she—­came
forward, taking off the cap pulled over her eyes and
letting fall the great cloak with which she had enveloped
herself in spite of the intense heat, and appearing
in the outrider’s livery which was to have been
the Queen’s disguise.

“C’est moi,” she says, hurriedly,
and putting a finger to her lips, “and I am
come to tell you that their Majesties have failed you—­have
abandoned the plan—­and to implore you to
escape while there is time.” She stood
straight and tall in her boy’s clothes, but the
dim light, falling upon her upturned face, showed
it pale as death, and her voice trembled as she spoke.